Only Time
by planet p
Summary: AU; a different look at the war.


**Only Time **by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own Supernatural or any of its characters.

* * *

_Three years ago_

Cold and bright, the room hummed with a background rumble, that of spinning, rotating engines, keeping the cool in.

The body of Holly Morton sat, suddenly, and, for the first time, seeing through new eyes, Ethel frowned. Well, this was all very swanky. Very modern. They'd not had this in 1911. Holly's hair was dark, and cut short, her body small but compact, and toned from regular jogs.

Ethel slid her new legs from the cold, hard slab on which she was lying, and began her way over to the door. As she walked, she wondered about Minnie, her best friend, who'd also died in 1911. Had Minnie come back, also?

Only time would tell, she supposed.

* * *

_Present day_

The only thing keeping Sindy holding on, Minnie's swimming thoughts gathered and collated, was her presence. If she was to leave, the maternity nurse would die, though perhaps she would anyway. Minnie had no way of knowing, really. How strong Sindy was was Sindy's business, and Minnie's stressed and weakened demonic powers were giving nothing away.

Sindy had passed out after the blood draining, and Minnie found herself in the boot of a car – a 'trunk' to Sindy (how very odd, indeed, wasn't a trunk part of a tree, or an elephant?) – and then, later, the boot was opened and light returned… no, not actually light, it was more like twilight, and men were peering at her, then hauling her out of the boot (men in uniforms, Minnie noted), and then, later, again, a hospital room constructed itself around her, Sindy's overworn eyes picking out piece by piece, building it into _something_, into a hospital room.

Was this good or bad, Minnie couldn't tell.

* * *

Minnie checked herself and her Sindy sack out of the hospital four days later, and departed to regroup with her fellow Regiment Hotel operative, Ethel. There were things they needed to discuss, celebrations to be had.

They'd won.

They'd really, really won.

* * *

Ethel paced back and forth inside the karaoke club's cramped booth where she'd agreed to meet Minnie, anxious. She'd booked the room for an hour, but if Minnie didn't hurry, that hour would be up before she arrived. They'd have much to discuss, if she decided she could trust her old friend.

Alien races, alternate worlds, parallel dimensions… it was mind baffling to Ethel.

But she remembered… a place, snatches of discussions, phrases, arguments, a strange shifting, stirring of air particles… a hospital, maybe.

A hospital in Hell? How strange a concept, though one she did not think should have been there.

And then, something in her arm, a… a light… a beam of light… only, it was doing something… it wasn't really light, was it; it couldn't really be light… and it was going into her eye, showing her things… things she remembered, things she was to remember…

Hell, she was in Hell…

In hospital…

The hospital of another time, another people, but… the same; everything the same, but different.

A thousand horrible thoughts had overtaken her at once: These aliens, they could control your thoughts, your mind! They could… change you… here… Back in her own world, they'd changed her!

But she hadn't wanted to be changed; she'd wanted to be Ethel only, and when Ethel died, that was the end of Ethel.

But they'd had other ideas. And such fantastical ideas they were!

Now it looked like all the demons and angels were were an alien species from another world, taking their war to new, unexplored turf. But then, what did that make her? And Minnie? They'd been human once, and now they weren't.

So what were they?

She paced some more, thinking things through.

Perhaps they _had_ been changed, in that other dimension; perhaps the people in that other dimension had had that sort of technology, or it had been given to them by the aliens, secretly hoping to further their cause, further their numbers, continue the war until there was, at last, a victor.

Tired, they were so tired.

But the war had to go on; both sides had to go on fighting, and win. None could stand to lose, it'd been too long, they'd put too much into this war, to lose now.

And the war would go on… across worlds… across existence… it would go on…

Ethel frowned, pausing in her pacing. What a strange body this was, that could know such things, that could sense such things… but… a slow, creeping shiver began to work its way through Ethel's every nerve… unless, Holly had never left…

Holly was different, too. Different already.

She waited for Minnie, still as a stone.

* * *

_Holly Morton is the runner from the Season 1 episode Faith (1.12), and Cindy/Sindy is the maternity ward nurse from the Season 4 finale (I'm not sure how Cindy's name is spelt; I think her last name's something with an 'M,' maybe McMahon, but again, I'm not 100% sure)._

_Thanks for reading._


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